


Nightmares A

by Nazorin76



Series: Aoipei Domestic au [2]
Category: Zero Escape (Video Games)
Genre: 999: Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors, 999: Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors Spoilers, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Domestic, Boys In Love, Cohabitation, Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic, Domestic Boyfriends, Domestic Fluff, Dorks in Love, Dreams and Nightmares, Established Relationship, Feelings, Feels, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Late Night Conversations, Late at Night, M/M, Nightmares, One Shot, Post-999: Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sad and Happy, Self-Worth Issues, Sharing a Bed, Short One Shot, Sleepy Boys, Sleepy Cuddles, Spoilers, Tags Contain Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 14:21:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19814095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nazorin76/pseuds/Nazorin76
Summary: *Warnings for implied/referenced past stabbing/child-abuse/torture/violence/animal abuse, M bc source is MPost-true-end au, no relation to Nightmares I, just same premiseAfter Santa has a nightmare about his trauma from 999 and Junpei gets pulled in through their psychic link, they comfort and soothe each other.





	Nightmares A

**Author's Note:**

> Shouldn't contain spoilers for VLR or ZTD since I haven't finished either.

Santa could see the hutch from the other side of the fence. He could see the school too. A boy slightly younger than him with brown hair and brown eyes and a broom runs past the hutch. He was laughing, playing swordfight with another boy from his class instead of cleaning. 

His smile is bright. So bright. 

Too bright. He is blinded. 

He cries out. 

The room echoes. The halls outside echo.

They echo with screams. 

They go on forever. 

He runs forever, his legs and lungs and chest and eyes burn, but the hallways lead to locked doors that lead to hallways that lead to locked doors. 

He opens a door. 

It is too bright. 

It is screaming. 

He doesn't want to see. 

He tries to shield his eyes. 

He cannot lift his arm. 

He's on a table. 

It wasn't like a bed at all. 

He was cold. 

He couldn't move. He was scared. 

He said so. 

No one listened. 

He couldn't hear himself. 

He couldn't speak. 

His arm hurt. 

His chest hurt.

He couldn't breathe. 

"You have been chosen." 

Santa exhales shakily, slowly opening his eyes. 

The same plain, low, stained, yellow-white plaster ceiling.

The same water damage. The mark that spread further every rain. 

The same action movie poster pinned up to cover it. 

The moon is peeping in through the curtains. Nosy. 

It's concentrated its glow with precision at his eyes. How vain. He scowled. 

He is cold.

His sweat is drying quickly and his heart rate is returning to normal as he tries to breathe deeply. 

The blankets he'd fallen asleep under no longer protect him from the frosty air from the open window.  
There's something heavy on his arm and chest. 

He looks down. 

A tuft of brown hair sticks out from the eye of a vortex of sheets.

The culprit.

He straightens his free arm from over his head and brings it down, intending to bonk the perp as revenge for leaving him in the cold, but he hears a small sound, like a whimper. 

The cocoon is shaking.

He pauses.

"... Junpei ?"

He can hear Junpei breathing unevenly and feel him shivering in the sheets.

"Hey, Junpei...?" he places his hand gently on where he thinks Junpei's back is.

Junpei jumps slightly and shakes harder. 

"Junpei, are you okay?" 

He carefully extracts his other arm from under Junpei and tries to maneuver into a sitting position with his back against the wall while keeping Junpei in his arms.

He peels back folds of the sheets to dig out Junpei's face, but he buries back in.

"Junpei, can you breathe? Are you okay?... What are you afraid of...?"

Guessing where he is in the sheets he sits him on his lap and holds him against his chest.

"Junpei, it's okay, I'm here. It's okay," he murmurs soothingly while stroking his head, letting his nails lightly graze him.

As he did, he gradually pulled the sheets around to let Junpei breathe easier, and to see his face.

His eyes were still closed, and he looked like he was in pain.

He brushed Junpei's bangs back and touched their foreheads to check for a temperature, but he felt fine.

"Junpei, please, I'm really worried, so you gotta wake up, okay?"

He hummed a concerned note and felt the resonance. 

He sighed anxiously. 

"... Aoi...?" 

Aoi opened his eyes and saw those brown eyes staring back at him.

They filled him with butterflies, as they always had.

He pulled back perhaps a little too quickly to be cool about it.

"You're awake, thank Fuck," he looked down at the blanket wrappings distractedly. 

"You made me worry, you were having a nightmare-" 

Junpei struggled briefly in the sheets, then abruptly freed his arms and hugged Aoi hard enough to knock him back against the wall.

"-oof-"

"I'm sorry," Junpei gasped breathlessly, "I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."

After a second, Aoi put his arm around Junpei, confused.

"It's okay... What are you sorry for, you don't have-"

"-I'm sorry-! Aoi, Aoi, I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."

Aoi could feel moisture on his nightshirt.

"Junpei..."

Junpei cried into his shirt, muffled,

"Aoi... I'm sorry... You were alone... I'm sorry... I made you s-suffer-"

"No, Junpei, you didn't-"

"No, no, Aoi, I'm sorry... I'm sorry I didn't get it sooner. I'm sorry- I'm sorry I didn't understand, I'm sorry I never knew, I'm sorry- I'm sorry I wasn't quicker- I'm sorry-"

He choked out between sobs.

Aoi looked down at him. 

He swallowed. 

This boy... This guy, this dude, this man...

He let his head fall back against the wall and looked up at the ceiling.

Their ceiling. 

He smiled wryly.

"Junpei... Junpei, it's okay. You've got it backwards." He looked out the window at the moon.

"I'm the one who's sorry. I'm the one who put you through all that. It was my fault. I was selfish to bring you into it."

"But you had to... For Akane."

"Yeah."

Junpei was calming down.

"But you got it. You solved the mystery. You figured it out. You got me." 

Junpei looked up. Aoi stared out the window. 

"And that... You saved me. You saved me. You saved Akane. You saved all of us. You saved everyone. And I... I am... I am so, so grateful." 

He dared a glance down. 

Into those big brown eyes. 

He'd seen them so full of light, full of life, full of love, and because of him... Empty, vacant, devoid of anything. 

He'd seen him angry, scared, sad, happy, and he didn't deserve any of it. 

A monster like him, he was almost as bad as Cradle, using people's lives for his own selfish purpose... 

Using one he loved the most to save another he couldn't live without. 

He didn't deserve him.

Yet here he was... 

Junpei was just inches away. 

He knew everything, and still... 

Junpei sighed and rested his forehead on Aoi's sharp collarbone. 

"Ahhhhh, I'm such an idiot."

"Hey-"

"But so are you."

"..."

"Ugh, we are just... The dumbass couple of the century aren't we."

Aoi smiled ruefully.

"What better match for a dumbass than a dumbass?"

"That's us..."

Junpei settled into a more comfortable position with his ear against Aoi's chest.

"I was wondering how long you were gonna impale yourself on my clavicle."

"I could only take it for so long, you're so bony cuddling is like being stabbed."

"Haha, well, I guess we'd both know what that feels like."

They both chuckled wryly.

Then they sat in silence, listening to each other's breathing. Junpei listening to Aoi's heart beating through his tear-stained tank top. Aoi rubbed small circles in Junpei's back with his fingertips.

Junpei spoke quietly.

"... I saw your dream."

"... Huh."

Silence.

Junpei unraveled himself from the blanket cocoon and shook them out so they were close enough to covering the bed. He made sure they covered Aoi's legs, covered with goosebumps.

Aoi stripped his damp shirt off and tossed it into the nether. It didn't matter. It wasn't a part of Junpei. 

He took the other corner and they laid back down, with the pillows and sheets and blankets all where they were supposed to be, and with Junpei resting his head on Aoi's chest, Aoi with one hand in Junpei's hair, and the other on his back under his shirt, where they should be.

Silence fell again, but it was peaceful. 

"You saw my dream?"

"Mhm."

"That's what was so scary?"

"I mean when you out it that way-"

"It scared me too."

"..."

"..."

Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

"Did you really used to look at me that way? In elementary school?"

"I always looked at you that way. You never seemed to notice. I still look at you that way, but I got better at hiding it."

Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum.

"You're such a cheeseball."

"Hey, I thought we were having a real heart-to-heart, like men."

"I can't believe after all you've been through I still make you nervous."

"I still love you."

"Ohmigawd, sTop," Junpei buried his face in his hands and curled into a ball.

"You can't hide your blush from me, I've had training."

"I don't think esper ninja spy training includes night vision."

"Well, I do have special powers, like, the ability to make Junpei blush on command, so he better watch out."

"Ugh, punk, I didn't think I could love you more and then you always gotta swoop in and call me out on being wrong."

"At least you already know what I'm planning."

"I already love you, Aoi, fuck, I already love you so much." Junpei brought a fist down on Aoi's chest half-heartedly, while the other stayed over his face.

Aoi could see his smile in the cool light of the moon, and feel it against his skin.

He ruffled Junpei's already outrageous bedhead, earning a displeased "rmph."

"Let's not have any more nightmares."

"Yeah, let's just decide to have control over our unconscious minds and choose to be over our extensive trauma."

"Yep."

"Okay."

"You got it."

"That's just what we're gonna do."

"Exactly."

Junpei sighed, but couldn't make it sound exasperated enough. Not that it would have fooled Aoi.

Just being like this was a dream Aoi had been too afraid to have.

Wasn't he just the luckiest.

As they drifted off to sleep, they dreamed of rabbits and sunshine.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Please feel free to leave a comment and kudos and tell me what your favorite line/part was!


End file.
